Volume 2 Sets Sail

EDIT: I guess technically this should be called Issue 2.


I'm sure that I am no different from the majority of people when I sit and stare at the blank page. It intimidates me and all I want to do is something that doesn't force me to think. When I got the notification that Comixology had accepted my first book, I was both thrilled and terrified.

You see, regardless of whether my books generate any kind of income for me and my family, I owe it to myself, Comixology and any readers that do become interested in WNTM to finish it. 

That's scary. 

This is probably going to be one of the biggest challenges I've ever faced.

And so when I've looked at the blank pages for the past week, I have been filled with quite a bit of trepidation. Even though I knew that the sooner I got started on this, the sooner I could release on a schedule that I was happy with. But it turned me to stone when I looked at it.

Reddit, you have been a bad distraction!

But I broke free from my catatonic state and got things rolling this week and thumbnailed all the pages yesterday and today. Then I photographed them with my iPad and brought the work into Procreate where I will be improving the layout and sketches.

Here we go!

Tablet FTW

Recently I purchased a new tablet because I heard about a nice little app called Procreate.

Unfortunately I had to purchase an iPad 4 because it was only available in iOS.

You see, I would have much rather gotten an android tablet, such as the Nexus 10, if only because I've already invested in quite a few Android apps.  I also like that there is quite a bit more freedom in Android.

The iPad does have a really good contrast ratio though and that makes it good for this sort of thing. Though not nearly as good as a decently calibrated monitor.

At first I was worried that I wouldn't make much use of it, but fortunately, I now think it was one of the best purchases I've made in a long time.


Because now I can draw anywhere, and draw the way I want to!

Here are some quick sketches done to get a sense of the whole thing.


I did use some other apps as well.  I find that I prefer roughing things out in Brushes or Sketchbook Mobile. So I have been using those apps a lot too.

Zombie Concept Dump

I've decided that I just need to fill out this blog a little better with art that has been done while I was working for past companies.

This dump consists of concept sketches that were made for zombie enemies that were used in a game that was the protoype that later became - Land of the Dead: Road to Fiddler's Green.  I worked on this game while working for BrainBox which is now a dead division of Digital Extremes.

These were made 9-10 years ago I think.

The Search for a Solution

With my wife still fighting back breast cancer - and doing very well - I have very little time to work on the graphic novel while juggling care for her and care of our two children.

A few weeks back though, I managed to squeeze out a little time here and there and started to tackle what process I would be taking to complete the book.

I have ruled out ink and paper, and have instead chosen to work in digital completely.  I think it will keep my initial costs down, and it will allow me to easily tweak composition and quickly fix mistakes.

Although I do have more of an affinity with ink and paper - it really just flows better and feels more natural - I think with the tests I have done, I have found a way that should still work well and produce a book that I can be proud of.

It will be created fully and only with FLOSS applications.  In the time that I have spent working in digital media, I have come to the conclusion that creating digital art should not cost a middle class fortune. The prices charged for "industry" software is outlandish, and only suppresses a large group of artists around the world from creating, or instead forces them to pirate the programs.

So, currently the process might be a little troublesome for an artist, because there is a lot of back and forth between programs.  In the long run though I think it will improve with the software and once I figure out a rhythm.

To date, I am still really only in the process of fleshing out the book.  I don't want to waste time with panel ideas and layouts. I just want to spend the time now to map the story out, get a feel for the location and characters and make the dialogue real and the narration have a decent flow to it.

What I have so far, is rough pages on individual sheets of paper in a notepad. I have then taken and entered the text into Libre Office and started to write it out - again each page on a seperate sheet - so I can then print it off, read over it and edit it some more. Each printed page has space where I can then start to layout the pages, panels, composition and dialogue in doodle form.

Initially I was planning on doing a colour book, and I wanted to go for a more realistic approach to the art. But the more indie comics I have read of late have only convinced me that the whole approach of having iconic characters in black and white helps the reader flow better through the book and story. I do not want the reader to stall on an image because they can't figure out what is going on, and therefore break their immersion in the story.

Also I believe it is cheaper for someone like me to print up black and white pages over full colour.  Besides there is beautiful design aesthetic to black and white images. Done right, when I see it in other peoples work, there almost appears to be a perfect balance on the page.  Truly a yin and yang thing.

So below, you'll see an attempt done recently using two fantastic programs, Inkscape and MyPaint to try and turn out what a finished page might look like. I say might, because I haven't even gotten into character designs yet, and I am completely new to spotting blacks. So this MAY be representative of what the finished product will look like.

Based on the template that Scott McCloud made and shows off on youtube, I created something similar in inkscape. Using my doodles on the written rough of the page, I create the layout and then export out a bitmap that I then do the "pencils" and "inks" in mypaint.

I hope to make a worthwhile template that I will share with others when it is completed.

Overall I am pleased with the current result. I do feel like I have a lot of work to do on spotting blacks. It just isn't a natural process for me yet.  Which brings me to the study I did below. I just wanted to see what looks "good".  I wanted to do more, but family duties forced me to put it on hold again.  I think the next exercise I do will require a more complicated scene.

I am waiting to try out the GIMP and Krita for this as well though.  There is something about mypaint that just seems to make it more geared to painting for me and not inking.  I fooled with Krita a bit with doing some inks and really enjoyed the way it seemed to flow.  But my old wacom died, and currently neither GIMP nor Krita work with my new Monoprice 12x9 graphics tablet (which is kickass and cheap), and Krita needs to iron out some interface issues, and the new GIMP was just released, and until it works with my tablet I can't even test it out.

Mypaint does work OUT OF THE BOX with my tablet though - I guess they use their own drivers or maybe its magic - so I'll continue to use it. And I really do love mypaint.

Ink and paper aren't out though. I've decided that I would like to do posters or illustrations a little more traditionally. My eyes need a break from monitors here and there. :)

Monitor Calibration Horror.

I've been trying today to calibrate my pretty cheap monitor.

The worst thing about doing this now, is that the current settings that I have set up right currently, show me that a lot of the past work that I have been doing is pretty poor in contrast.

The previous post's image of werewolves concepts is a pretty good example of that.  Here's the problem, on my monitor before calibration it looks fine.  Obviously, I painted it in that environment. On my smartphone, a Nexus S, it looks fine, ignoring a few problematic high contrast areas.

On the newly calibrated monitor  though -  which I think is better than before, but far from perfect - it is barely visible and hard to make out.  As a test, I brought the image into the GIMP and tweaked the Levels, Brightness/Contrast and Curves as well. It appears better on my screen now, but shows that as a concept piece it is kind of weak.

When getting into an extremely dark piece like this, and this is probably true of extremely bright pieces as well, cheap screens just aren't calibrated properly and give a poor range of blacks and whites.  Graphics people shouldn't cut or skimp on monitors if they can afford not to.

I am going to have to fool with this monitor setup more and see where I can compromise. I just hope this doesn't ruin all my work. 

If you feel that you could benefit from some eyeball calibration of your monitor, here is the link

monitor calibration tips and resource

that I used to tweak my NVIDIA settings.

P.S. to all of you that have viewed my work on a properly or semi-properly calibrated monitor, I apologize.

Sympathy for the Devil

Well, it has been difficult to find time to work on anything related to the graphic novel, let alone any other type of art.

Currently, with my wife working her way through chemo therapy to fight breast cancer, I find that the whole family is strapped for time. Because of this my duties have increased taking care of the house, her and the kids and so I don't have much time for anything else.  When I do have some time at night, I find myself completely exhausted.

Right now I am REALLY tired. I've never been this tired. @_@

For a while there, early into her treatment, art seemed pretty trivial, when faced with the all the things cancer heaps on a family. Naturally I guess I've shied away from it, and so things have been left by the wayside. Probably for the better. I've stewed on design and story ideas.

Lately though, I've been making a more serious attempt to do something... anything. I really want to create this book.

Anyways.

I was never entirely comfortable with the look of the werewolf.  An American Werewolf in London's creature effects has had a huge influence on my design ( I love that film ) but I want to inject my own take and style on it. These concepts come from me trying to nail down something.

The whole character of the wolf needs fleshing out. And the town too.

More to come. I hope.

Experiments in Design and Composition

So I am fooling around with design and composition. At the very least I am trying to wrap my head around it better.

For some reason I seem to be up against a brick wall with the Lampy short, and so I've been working on other things as an escape from the circles in my thought process.

I just can't seem to make up my mind on where to take it. I could just go ahead and create a silly action short that consists of a fight between Lampy and Bubba, but I don't feel that I would be very faithful to the world that I am trying to create for them, and I doubt anyone would even take notice.

There is a deeper experience to Lampy that I would like to bring out. It's not immediately apparent on the surface, but I think that it is worth striving towards.

As for the werewolf graphic novel(OH! hoity toity), I think these little exercises will help get me into a frame of mind over time to help me tackle that story better too.

These following two images are poster doodles. I was just blocking out strokes on the computer - hoping something interesting would pop out that I could pounce on and take somewhere.

This is what came about of that. I didn't bother with any kind of standardized poster size. Maybe these look more like old book covers. At least that is what I am starting to see while posting this.

These two "thumbnails", or at least what started out as thumbnails, were me working through the FPS ideas that have been floating around in my head for some time.

Again not really trying to do accomplish anything except rip something creative out of my head.

I stuck with gray scale in these images because I didn't really want the hassle of trying to figure out colours. To be honest I think my eye for colour can be somewhat lacking, so this was really an exercise in composition, dramatic tone and narrative.

These were all done using the super awesome, free and open source painting program called MyPaint.

Image Dump

Website is gone. Why pay money for hosting when there is so many great - and free - alternatives.  Sure I lost all contacts and any traffic ( if any ) that my website had generated, but this is better in the long run.

Sketch 1

Sketch 2